Project Management

IDS 355
FALL 2015
 Learning Objectives
 Projects vs Production Processes
 Project characteristics and Elements
 Project Cycle
 Scheduling, Gantt Chart
 Precedence Diagrams
 Deterministic Modeling: Elements, Critical Path, Slack, Example
 Probabilistic Model:
 Expected task duration, task duration and variation, path variation, Example

 Project Duration: probabilistic Models

Projects and Production Processes

 Production can be described along three dimensions:

 Uniqueness
 Complexity
 Scale (of the production run)
 Examples:
 Mass production: Large-scale, highly standardized items
 Might be simple, like nails & washers
 Might be complex, like cars or computer chips
 Craft production: Small-scale; typically simple, similar items
 Projects: Unique, complex, produced singly

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Project Characteristics

 Complex:
 Requiring many workers and other resources
 Production must be scheduled in stages, often over months or even years
 Uniqueness:
 Different contextual factors:
 Road & building construction must consider terrain and other features
 Major software installation projects at different organizations
 Rarely possible to bring the same employees to the same project
 In any event, employees improve and acquire skills during a project
 Single-unit production:
 Many successful projects are not repeated (software installations, R & D)
 Other causal factors: size, expense, time, or the desire for a unique product

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Project Elements

 Goals
 Completion: When is the project actually finished?
 Intermediate: How well is the project proceeding?
 Goals need to be very carefully defined!
 Schedule
 What has to happen, and when?
 Breaking big project into manageable units
 Budget
 How much funding is available?
 How is the funding distributed over the projects
 Resources
 Assigned to perform tasks
 Includes work teams, materials, and equipment

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Project Life Cycle

 Four-stage model:
 Definition: What will the project achieve?
 Planning: How will the project be executed?
 Execution: Doing and managing the work
 Delivery: Handing over the project and updating records
 Discuss: What activities happen during each stage?
 Many alternative models exist, often differing by splitting or recombining these
basic activity groupings

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Work Breakdown Structure

 A project can be viewed as a sequential set of activities that either:

 Produce a deliverable
 Enable other activities to proceed
 Before tasks can be scheduled and resources assigned, the scope of the project
must be defined
 Scope ultimately means the set of deliverables
 Beware of scope creep!
 The work breakdown structure is a tool for representing the component activities
of a project

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Example: Work Breakdown Structure

Level 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Project

Level 2 - - - - - - Preparation --------- -------------

Installation Testing

Level 3 - - Task P1 Task P2 Task I1 Task I2 Task T1 Task T2 Task T3

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Work Breakdown Structure:
Rules & Conventions
 The work breakdown structure displays deliverables
 The project itself
 The subunits composing the project
 Does not display the schedule
 Each level represents the entire project
 Top level is the project as a single block
 Lower levels explode the project in increasing detail
 Connecting lines show composition of project
 Nodes may have one or more child nodes below
 The set of children is all outcomes within the parent node’s scope

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Scheduling

 Scheduling shows:
 The set of tasks for the entire project
 Estimated start & finish times
 Resources assigned to each task
 Precedence relationships
 Scheduling tools:
 Gantt chart
 Precedence diagrams
 Models:
 Deterministic
 Probabilistic

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Scheduling (continued)

 Each task has an expected time requirement

 Time requirements may be (in practice) fixed:
 Physical or chemical processes, like cement drying
 By contract terms
 Or they may be variable:
 More workers or ones with better skills
 More or faster equipment
 Crashing: Assigning additional resources to complete a task sooner

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Gantt Chart

 Partial screenshot from Microsoft Project

 Shows:
 Task durations and start & finish times
 Predecessors (sequence requirements)

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Precedence Diagrams

 Two representation models:

 Precedence Diagram Modeling (PDM), aka Activity on Node (AON)
 Tasks are nodes
 Precedence relationships are arrows
 Activity on Arrow (AOA)
 Tasks are arrows
 Precedence relationships shown by arrow sequence
 Both are logically equivalent but:
 PDM is more widely used
 Many current software tools no longer support AOA

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Examples: PDM and AOA

 Nine tasks, A – I with task durations in parentheses

 Two representations of same project:

PDM AOA

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Deterministic Modeling

 Assumption: The project can be scheduled with high confidence

 Task durations known
 Task start times known
 Task finish times can be inferred
 Deterministic modeling is suitable when:
 Project largely composed of routine tasks
 Substantial history of relevant data:
 Worker skills and performance
 Durations of comparable or identical tasks
 Minimal risk of outside factors causing duration variance

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Deterministic Modeling: Elements

 For each task:

 Duration (D)
 Start times:
 Early (ES)
 Late (LS)
 Finish times:
 Early (EF)
 Late (LF)
 By definition, for a particular task, D = LF – LS = EF – ES
 Across tasks:
 Precedence relationships
 Critical path

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Critical path

 The entire project will be completed through the sequence of tasks with the
longest total duration
 This is the critical path
 Project duration = critical path length
 Critical because:
 Delaying completion of any task on it will delay completing the entire project
 Conversely, saving time on the critical path  faster completion
 Discuss: Can a project have multiple critical paths?

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Slack

 Any task not on the critical path can be delayed, to a point, without affecting the
expected project completion time
 This allowable delay is termed slack
 For any particular task, slack = LF – EF = LS – ES
 For all tasks on the critical path, slack = zero
 Importance of slack:
 Slack can be used to allow for variation in task duration
 Resources might be borrowed from tasks with slack to hasten tasks on the critical path
and finish the project sooner
 Scheduling a project with zero slack may look good on paper but fall behind schedule
due to unforeseen events or staffing changes

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Example: Project Scheduling,
Deterministic Model
 Deterministic model for setting up a new facility location
Task Description Duration Predecessor(s)
1 Locate facility 8 weeks
2 Order furniture 6 weeks 1
3 Interview employees 4 weeks
4 Hire & train employees 9 weeks 3
5 Remodel facility 11 weeks 1
6 Set up furniture & equipment 3 weeks 2
7 Move in 1 week 4, 5, 6

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Example: AON Graph

 What are the critical path and project duration?

 What are the:
 Early and late start times?
 Early and late finish times?
 Slack times?

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Example: AOA Graph

 Structurally equivalent to previous AOA example

 Same three paths
 Task and project times also identical

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Probabilistic Model

  
Task durations are not known but are given as distributions with a particular mean
and standard deviation
 Beta distribution is commonly used (instead of normal)
 Can be specified as a bell curve
 Upper and lower bounds may be specified
 Need not be symmetrical
 Key parameters:
 : Optimistic finish time (below 1% likelihood)
 : Most likely finish time (mode of distribution)
 : Pessimistic finish time (below 1% likelihood)

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Expected Task Duration

  Given , , and , we can find the expected duration

 Equation:

 Example: A task has an optimistic time of 4 days, a pessimistic time of 20 days,

and a most likely time of 15 days. What is the expected task duration?

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Task Duration: Variation

  
Given and , we can find the variance of the task duration (and the standard
deviation as its square root)

 Equation:

 Example: A task has an optimistic time of 4 days, a pessimistic time of 20 days,

and a most likely time of 15 days.
 What is the variance of the task duration?
 What is the standard deviation of the task duration?

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Path Variation

 To find the variance of the duration of a path (sequence of tasks), add the individual
variances of the tasks
 The standard deviation of a path’s duration = square root of the variance
 The path length (duration) is simply the sum of expected task times
Task Opt. Most Pess.
Time Likely Time
 Example: A critical path consists of four tasks:
Time
 What is the path length? A 3 4 6
 What is the variance of the path length? B 5 10 12
 What is the standard deviation of the path length? C 4 6 8
D 2 4 12

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Example: Path Length & Variation

 Three paths with {optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic} times

 For all three paths, find:
 Path length
 Variance and standard deviation of path length

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Project Duration,
Probabilistic Model

 The distribution of a sum of independent beta

distributions can be treated as approximately normal
 We can use the project duration mean and standard
deviation to find the probability of completion by a
specified time:
 Convert completion time to z-score
 Find P(actual completion < z)

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Example: Project Duration, Probabilistic
Model
 Use the critical path (d-e-f) from the previous example and assume:
 The three activity durations are independent
 No other path can be sufficiently delayed to supplant the critical path
 Find:
 The probability of completion by week 15
 The probability of completion by week 17
 The probability of not completing the project by week 17

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